The Smile of a Ghost (Merrily Watkins 7), page 30
The Irish saints whose remains were found inside the mound were identified as Cochel, Fercher and Ona, who had come to live in the area. However, holy relics were much prized in those days…
Et cetera, et cetera…
Mum had come in, was leaning over her shoulder.
‘It’s OK, I’m quite willing to accept they were more likely to have been the remains of three guys with big beards and horns on their helmets.’
Jane looked up. ‘You sound happier.’
‘We rationalized the situation.’
‘Lol’s OK with it?’
‘Yeah, Lol’s… more OK than I expected.’
Jane smiled and nodded. Best not to tell Mum about J.D. Fyneham until it was confirmed one way or the other. She pointed at the screen, which showed an aerial photo of Ludlow with the church and the castle vying for prominence and the church probably winning, even though the castle had much more ground and the church was crowded by streets on three sides.
‘I think we should maybe check out the church, before we see her,’ Jane said. ‘OK?’
‘But before that we should pop into our own church.’
Jane looked over her shoulder. ‘Why?’
‘I’m not making a big thing of this. I’d just like us to do St Pat’s breastplate and the Lord’s Prayer… if that’s OK?’
‘You think we need spiritual protection?’
‘There’s nothing lost.’
‘OK.’ Jane shrugged. ‘I’ve never been a chauvinistic pagan. But, like, you really think this achingly sad, faded, 1980s icon is a source of satanic evil?’
‘I’ll be honest – I don’t know. We don’t know what she’s collected over the years.’
‘No gold discs, that’s for sure,’ Jane said. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’
She thought of the last time they’d done something like this, before the Boy Bishop ceremony in Hereford Cathedral, back when Mick Hunter was Bishop and Mum was a novice exorcist. It had followed one of the biggest rows they’d ever had, and it seemed like half a lifetime ago, and it was good to think how much more adult they both were about this kind of thing now.
‘Look,’ Mum said, ‘it’s not that I feel particularly insecure about assuming a role which admittedly is in… explicit denial of my Christianity… if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Didn’t say a thing.’
‘OK…’ Mum put a hand to her forehead. ‘I’m probably lying. Of course I feel insecure. And I really don’t know if it’s a good thing to have you along or not.’
‘I can watch your back,’ Jane said. ‘You know me.’
Mum rolled her eyes and winced at the pain this evidently caused. The swelling had gone down now, but it was still conspicuously a black eye.
The phone rang. They both stared at it.
‘Might be Lol?’ Jane said.
They carried on staring at it, because this was late for any kind of call, until the machine cut in. Then there was a man’s voice Jane didn’t recognize, a Northern kind of voice.
‘Mary… if you’re still up… Shit… I got a problem here. With Bell. I didn’t know who to—’
Mum picked up.
‘Jon?’
Jane could hear a sound of apparent relief, then a lot of gabbled talk, Mum listening, the computer screen turning her face mauve.
‘What about the police?’ Mum said. And then she said, ‘Isn’t there a cottage hospital?’ And then, after about half a minute, she said, ‘All right, I’ll come over,’ and put the phone down and stood there for a moment with her lips set into a tight line.
‘What?’ Jane said.
Mum let out a breath. ‘Jon Scole, the ghost-walk guy. She turned up on his doorstep, about half an hour ago. He’s got a flat over his shop, and there’s an alleyway and some steps, and she was on her hands and knees…’
‘Belladonna?’
‘She was doing her… walk, and they were waiting for her, where The Linney goes down towards St Leonards and the river. Dark, narrow, secluded…’
‘Who were?’
‘Seems to have been girls – women. They were waiting for her, and they started hurling abuse. And then they… they just beat her up.’
‘The women did?’
‘And she won’t have the police brought in, and her stepdaughter’s away for the weekend, and Jon Scole doesn’t know what to do.’
‘We’re going over there?’
‘Looks like I’m going,’ Mum said.
‘What about me?’
‘You get some sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can. And we’ll still go back tomorrow.’
‘It is tomorrow,’ Jane said.
And sensed that everything was about to go seriously wrong.
When the phone went again, not five minutes after Mum had left, Jane didn’t even have the heart to do the spoof-answering-machine bit.
‘Ledwardine Vicarage.’
‘Is that Mrs Watkins?’
‘She’s… not available. This is Jane Watkins.’
‘It’s Gail Mumford here. Andy Mumford’s wife.’
‘Oh, yeah, I know.’
‘She isn’t with my husband again, is she?’
Jane smiled. It was like Mum and Mumford were having some kind of torrid affair.
‘I can honestly say she isn’t.’
‘You haven’t heard from him, have you?’
‘I…’ Jane had picked up some serious strain in this woman’s voice. ‘No, I’m pretty sure we haven’t. He’s out somewhere?’
‘He’s been out all day, I think. I don’t know what’s the matter with him. When he was with the police, at least you— Look, I don’t know how old you are—’
‘Old enough,’ Jane said. ‘Look, Mum’s had to go over to Ludlow. I don’t think she’s expecting to see Andy there, but I’ll give her a call, and if…’
Jane noticed Mum’s mobile, left behind on the sermon pad. Bugger.
‘… If I get to speak to her, and she knows anything, I’ll get back to you. Will you be up for a bit?’
‘Of course I’ll be up.’
‘OK. And, of course, if we hear from Andy meanwhile—’
‘If you hear from him, you tell him he might not have a wife here when he gets back,’ Mrs Mumford said.
33
Lift Shaft into Heaven
MERRILY LEFT THE Volvo outside the health-food shop at the bottom of the row, just up Corve Street from St Leonard’s chapel, and walked up to Lodelowe, its small window misted crimson from a lamp burning in the recesses. It made her think of shrines.
The alleyway next to the shop door was unlit and made her think of the Plascarreg Estate, and that made her want not to enter the alley.
The night was mild, almost warm. She peered into the shop window, over the painted plaster models of timber-framed houses, a stack of tourist pamphlets: Haunted Ludlow. No movement in there, and – she backed off and looked up towards the centre of town – no movement on the street, either, apart from shifting shadows and the glimmer of street lamps and the waning moon in old windows and the traffic lights near the crest of the hill. Always an eeriness about traffic lights in the dead of night, when there was minimal traffic, as though the lights must be a warning of something else that had always travelled these streets, silent and invisible.
She stumbled over the kerb as a ribbon of female laughter unravelled from somewhere not too close. She thought of women and girls binge-drinking in packs, beating people up. Was this a twenty-first-century phenomenon, or was it happening just the same when this town was young, in the days of Merrie England, when street violence was part of the merrie system? And therefore the apparent growth of civilization was all illusion – God seeing right through it, looking down with weary cynicism, the oil running low in his lamp of eternal love.
Night thoughts. Merrily stepped back as a light was put on, and all the bricks in the alley came to life.
‘Mary?’
‘I’m here.’
She stepped into the alley. Jon Scole was standing at the bottom of some steps, under an iron-framed coach lamp, his leather waistcoat undone over a black T-shirt, a bunch of keys hanging from his belt, like a jailer’s keys.
‘Hey, listen, I’m sorry, Mary, I did try to ring you back.’
‘Damn.’ Patting the pockets of her fleece. ‘Came out without the phone.’
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘she’s gone now.’
‘Where?’
‘You better come in.’ He stepped back for her to go up the stairs, which were concrete, a kind of fire escape.
‘Is she hurt?’
‘Not much, I don’t think. Sick, though.’
‘Sick?’
‘Go on up.’
Climbing the steep steps, Merrily realized how tired she was. A long day, or was that yesterday?
The door at the top was ajar. It was an old door, patched and stained, the light inside mauve-tinted. She went through, directly into the room over the shop, a room that shouted temporary. Strip lights were hanging crookedly from a bumpy ceiling shouldered by old beams smeared with new plaster. The furniture was second-hand rather than old – the kind of stuff Lackland Modern Furnishings might have sold twenty-five years ago. There was a wide-screen TV and a stereo with silver speaker cabinets, and a flat-screen computer that looked expensive.
The room smelled of curry.
‘Bit of a mess,’ Jon Scole said. ‘Haven’t had time to tart it up yet. Can I get you a drink? Red wine? White wine?’
‘Jon, it’s after midnight, I’m a bit knackered.’
‘Sorry.’ His flaxen hair was slicked back, and his beard looked damp, as though he’d held his face under a tap to sober himself up. ‘I’m not thinking. She does your head in. Look, at least sit down. Cup of coffee, yeah?’
‘No, really…’ She lowered herself to the edge of a red, upholstered chair with wooden arms. ‘Just tell me what happened.’
‘It’s like I said, she comes banging at the shop door. I’d not been in long, been down the pub with some tourists after the ghost-walk. She’s like, “They’re after me.” ’
‘Who were they?’
‘Just girls… women. See, she’s safe, more or less, if she stays up the posh end of town. Anywhere else, pushing her luck. She’s not popular in some quarters. It’s like, rich slag doesn’t give a shit for the poor young people she’s forcing out.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning the land over there, below the castle, that this guy was gonna build on and she bought off him?’
‘I thought people were delighted about that.’
‘Some people were delighted – the neighbours who’ve got all the old houses near hers, the ones as were faced with losing their view and getting kids on bikes, and lawnmowers and radios and idiots cleaning the fuckin’ car on a Sunday morning – they were delighted, the Ludlow bourgeoisie. But, you see, there’s a ruling now from the council that if you’re building new housing you’ve got to include a percentage of affordable homes.’
‘I get it.’
‘’Course, this guy Dickins, the feller planning to build down here, he’d agreed to double the low-cost quota. He’d’ve wormed out of it if he’d got planning permission, but he gets the benefit of the doubt, unlike the bitch who’s denied young people their only chance of having an affordable house in a decent part of town. So that’s why they went after her, I reckon. Get tanked up and then it’s like, Let’s wait for the rich bitch. Rage and booze, Mary.’
Jon Scole went and stood by the window. It overlooked Corve Street, a red-brick Georgian dwelling opposite, under a street lamp: the unattainable, unless you’d sold your house in London.
‘What did they do to her, Jon?’
‘Mucked her up a bit. Mauled her about. She wouldn’t go into details.’
‘It’s a police matter.’
‘She don’t want the publicity. If I rang the cops, she’d never speak to me again. Anyway— Bloody hell’ – he squatted at her feet and looked up into her bruised eye – ‘what happened to you?’
‘I have a dangerous job,’ Merrily said. ‘Where’s she gone?’
‘So that’s why you were wearing them sexy shades.’
‘How long was she here?’
‘Went in the bathroom to clean herself up, and that was when I phoned you. I see you’re not wearing a wedding ring.’
‘You told her I was coming?’
‘She wasn’t gonna wait. Just hung on till it had gone quiet and then she was off. About quarter of an hour ago. You got a boyfriend, Mary?’
Merrily didn’t move; if she leaned away from him she’d be trapped in the armchair, if she edged forward she’d be touching his knees. He was evidently still a little drunk. It would, on the whole, have made more sense not to come up here.
‘What was she wearing?’
‘Aye, well…’ Jon Scole stood up. ‘That couldn’t’ve helped.’ The keys clunked at his belt; he seemed to like wearing things that made metallic noises.
Merrily took the opportunity to stand up, too, stepping nearer the door.
‘She’s got… kind of a nightdress on,’ he said. ‘Satin. It laces up at the sides. It looked… strange.’
‘She was walking through the streets like that?’
‘I offered to drive her home. She wouldn’t let me. Just as well, I expect I’m a touch over the limit.’
‘You could’ve walked back with her.’
‘Mary, nobody’s allowed to do that. When she walks at night, she walks alone.’
‘Don’t you think you should ring the police now?’
‘She’d know who it was. I keep telling you, Mary, I don’t want to blow it with her. She’s like…’ He waggled his hands. ‘Look, if you wanna make sure she’s OK, I know which way she goes.’
‘What sort of state was she in?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Shocked? Distressed?’
‘I don’t know…’ He went to the window, looked down into the street. ‘Angry… electric.’
‘In what way?’ Merrily moved nearer the door.
‘It’s like something charges her up. I went to watch her, once. I waited for her in the churchyard, behind a tree – just to watch what she did, you know? I’d waited for bloody ages by the time she showed. I mean showed – faded up, not a sound. Weird. She was like she was in a trance – like her mind was somewhere else, but her body was… wooar… trembling. Vibrating, you know? Like it was aglow. I’m probably exaggerating this a bit, she was just a woman walking in the dark. Anybody like that in these streets is bound to look a bit spooky.’
‘You approach her?’
‘Break the spell? She’d have had me eyes out. I let her go past, and I went home.’
‘What did you think was happening?’
‘She was getting off on it.’
‘On what?’
‘I don’t know.’ Scole seemed almost angry that he didn’t know. ‘When she comes banging on the door tonight, she’s all over me. Hot and… you know. Burning up. It’s why I called you. Anybody could see she were burnin’ up…’
Merrily waited by the door. There was a dark green waste bin next to it, with chip paper in it, a curry carton, squashed lager cans.
‘I din’t trust meself, all right?’ He looked down at his trainers. ‘Didn’t wanna blow it.’ He looked up, across at Merrily, punched his palm. ‘I cannot believe you’re a priest. What’s a woman like you doin’ bein’ a fuckin’ priest?’
‘Which way did she go, Jon?’
‘Dunno. Back towards St Leonard’s? Makes no difference, she’ll pass through St Laurence’s churchyard. Whichever way she goes, it always takes in the churchyard. I’ll show you, eh?’
‘No, I think it’s best if I go on my own, thanks. We don’t want her to feel threatened. Not after what happened.’
‘You think that’s safe, Mary, on your own?’
‘It’s Ludlow, Jon, not Glasgow.’
‘I wouldn’t touch you,’ Jon Scole said, plaintive.
‘I know. I just… maybe I should talk to her on my own. Maybe it’s the best chance I’ll get.’
‘As a psychic?’ He laughed.
‘Something like that.’ She pushed down the door handle and the door sprang against her hand, and she was grateful he hadn’t locked them in. ‘And, yes,’ she said, ‘for future reference, I have got a boyfriend.’
‘Well, he’s a lucky twat,’ Jon Scole said bitterly, not moving from the window. ‘Hey…’
‘What?’
‘You wanna watch yourself, Mary. She likes women, too.’
‘But not priests, apparently,’ Merrily said. ‘If it gets difficult, I can always flash the cross.’
There were still a few people around as Merrily walked quickly up through the centre of the town towards the Buttercross: the inevitable sad drunk, the inevitable couple-in-a-shop-doorway and, more curiously, two women with one small boy trotting ahead of them, a good six hours after his bedtime. All the untold stories of night streets.
At the Buttercross, she slipped like a cat into the tightness of Church Street, narrow as a garden path, with its pub and its bijou shops and galleries, most windows dark now. Behind this street – seamed by alleyways, made intimate by moonlight and scary by shadows – was the church of St Laurence with its great tower, the axle through the wheel of the town.
She stood at the main entrance, looking directly up at the Beacon of the Marches, taller by far than the castle keep. The tower, with its lantern windows, seemed to be racing away from her, a lift shaft into heaven, and she thought about the Palmers’ Guild, convinced it was pressing the right buttons. Medieval Christianity: two steps up from magic.
The night was soft and close here, the air still sweet with woodsmoke from dying fires in deserted hearths, and the sky was olive green, lightly stroked with orange in the north.
She stood listening for a couple of minutes, almost convinced that if there was anything abusive or violent occurring anywhere in Ludlow she’d be able to hear it, because this was the nerve centre. Never had a cluster of buildings felt more like some kind of living organism, and she wondered if Belladonna, of whom there was no sign at all, was standing somewhere, just like this, letting it heal her.
